


Homecoming

by warqueenfuriosa (orphan_account)



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Love Letters, One Shot, Romance, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:27:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22875517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/warqueenfuriosa
Summary: Inez has read Vin's letters so many times, the ribbon tying them together has frayed to nothing. World War II has put thousands of miles between them for too long but now he's coming home. Will Vin be the same man Inez has loved all this time? Or will he be changed beyond recognition?
Relationships: Inez Recillos/Vin Tanner
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Homecoming

Inez had been staring at the horizon for hours, searching the seering blue of the empty sky. Clutched to her chest were letters, carefully scratched in scraps of pencil, stubs of thick black charcoal, or the strained, dying ink of a scarce pen. Confessions of love intertwined with bitter homesickness, carried by the sprawling handwriting of the man she loved.

World War II had squeezed Vin into a uniform, bound the wildness of him into the rigidity of a soldier, as if anything could ever tame him. 

But his letters spoke of freedom in the skies, finding solace and comfort in the midst of war’s agonies as he sailed the same wide open spaces that reminded him so much of the Texas plains he’d been born into.

A freckle of black took wing in the sky, miles and miles in the distance. Inez shielded her eyes with one hand, the letters crinkling as she held them a little tighter. 

_Darling, I’m coming home._

How many times had she re-read those letters, memorizing every line, every word, until she heard the cadence of his voice in her head? 

How many times had she slid her hand beneath Vin’s empty pillow, her fingers tracing the frayed edge of the ribbon binding those letters together?

_This war would be half bearable if you were here by my side, your skin against mine, with your brave, stalwart heart to give me courage._

Half a dozen more black dots emerged against the depthless blue horizon. A murmur of fragile, cautious hope whispered through the loved ones waiting with Inez. Hope had been broken too many times during this godawful war, buried with the bodies sent home in boxes, or never returned at all.

But hope buzzed in the voices now, as Casey gripped Nettie’s arm with pale, trembling fingers. Hope bloomed in the hitch of Mary’s breath when she took a step forward.

A glint of sunlight flashed off of a metal wing. Inez’s heart _**soared.**_

Billy let out a whoop. “It’s them! It’s them!”

Mere minutes stood between Inez and Vin, compared to the thousands of miles, from Texas to Germany, that had separated them for three years. What should have been bearable was pure agony. 

_Save a kiss for me, my love, every day that I am gone._

The drone of engines grew from a dull buzz to a roar. Seven airplanes spanned the sky, lined up one after the other as they prepared to land on the dry, dusty desert earth. Inez squinted against the sun’s glare, searching for…

_There._

On the second airplane’s tail, a cowboy was painted alongside his pinto. Underneath, it read, RAMBLING MAN.

Inez bounced on her toes, reaching as high as she could. She waved her arms in the air and cheered, letters in hand, red ribbon cutting the sky.

The planes skimmed the ground, blazing past as they skidded in the dust.

The moment Vin’s Rambling Man touched down, Inez was running. Vin shoved the cockpit’s canopy back as he rose up from his seat. For a moment, he stood silhouetted against the sky, helmet tugged low over his ears, goggles shielding his face, brown leather jacket clinging close to his lean frame.

Then he spotted her. 

Vin jumped to the ground, stripped off his helmet and goggles and ran to meet Inez. He caught her up in his arms with a laugh of relief, his letters trapped between them.

In his coat pocket, over his heart, paper gave off a crinkly rasp. Paper penned in looping, precise handwriting, tinged with Inez’s lavender perfume.

_The newspapers reported six more pilots lost. Write to me. Tell me you’re alive. Don’t come home to me in a pine box, Vin Tanner._

Inez buried her face in Vin’s shoulder, a laugh and a sob at war in her chest, choked together. She gulped in a deep breath of him - engine oil and the sweetness of fresh air found only above the clouds.

Finally, Inez pulled away and looked up at Vin, her hand cupped to the back of his neck. His hair had been trimmed short, which she had known about, thanks to a picture or two Buck had sent home. But it looked… _wrong_. Yet another mark of the soldier that didn’t fit him, like a jacket too tight, small, constrictive.

Vin touched his forehead to Inez’s, tension easing from his shoulders. His breath fanned against her mouth as he hooked his arms around Inez’s waist and enveloped her, folding her against him as he if could imprint her into him and they would never be apart again.

“Inez,” Vin whispered, like a prayer, like a hallelujah.

She smiled so wide, she felt as if she would burst at the seams with how happy she was. The war was over. Vin was hers once more.

Gingerly, Inez brought her fingers to Vin’s lips, tracing the line of his mouth. He kissed her fingers and smiled, slow and contented, bright as the sun.

Inez studied him for a moment. She’d heard the stories from others. Their men had returned home, hollowed out and empty, shells of themselves. Alive, yes, but in a way, still lost somewhere out there on the battlefield, pieces of themselves riddled among the shrapnel, the bodies, the blood-soaked earth.

Did she see that now in her Vin’s face? What had the war taken from him? Three years and so much death, so much killing, wouldn’t leave him unchanged. She’d heard it in his letters, the pain of watching his brothers in arms fall by his side, powerless to help them.

Vin brushed his thumb over Inez’s chin, trailing his knuckles along her cheek.

Inez sighed and closed her eyes. She turned her face into his hand, kissed his palm. 

It didn’t matter, she thought. Whatever changes the war had wrought in him, she recognized the same Vin in the way he touched her like she was holy.

Vin’s hand closed over Inez’s fingers, ink and charcoal and _darling, I’m coming home_ smudged on her skin, her memory, her heart. She opened her eyes, looked up at him.

“You kept my letters?” he said.

“Every single one.”

Vin cupped Inez’s face in his hands and kissed her, a smile on his lips. He splayed his fingers across the width of her back, filling his hands with all of her. 

Inez looped her arms around Vin’s neck, drawing him flush against her. Her fingers found the worn edges of her own letters, tucked in his pocket.

Of course he would keep her words, hold them close, the only gentleness afforded him in an unkind, war-torn world.

Inez had told him many things, hidden away in envelopes with a keepsake or two - a hair ribbon, photographs, newspaper articles.

At last, she could tell him the one thing she had never been able to say in her letters. She drew back, her mouth nearly touching his, and whispered, _welcome home._

**Author's Note:**

> I've been struggling with some intense writer's burnout for a while so I decided to poke around my old fics folder for inspiration. I stumbled across this and thought I'd share. Hope you liked it! ♥ Feel free to drop by tumblr @warqueenfuriosa to say hi!


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